


Threshold

by WyrmLivvy



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Canonical Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WyrmLivvy/pseuds/WyrmLivvy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mito suffers from the ill effects of being the Kyuubi's host and Toka tries to ease her pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Threshold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for femslash feburary. This was supposed to be 5k but the new Naruto chapter jossed a flashback I had written. I couldn't salvage it but I'm posting this although the canon will probably render this fic inaccurate once Mito reappears. Read chapter 2 only if you want to be sad. Thanks to laveli for beta-ing.

     By the weak light of the candle, in the dark of night, Mito sat at her desk, dipped a brush into an inkwell and carefully wrote characters onto an open scroll. She paused to consider her work and to brace herself - the surge of hateful chakra came as she had expected, but it is stronger than the previous waves that night.  She gasped forward, throwing out her arms upon the desk, to keep upright. The violent movement caused the candle to over. In a moment the desk and the papers upon it caught fire.

     She dropped the brush she had been holding, it fell to the floor with a clatter. She quickly formed hand seals to summon a small whirlpool of water. She aimed it to douse the flames, but her concentration was broken by the claw of another chakra surge. Water spluttered into the fire, ending the flames, but excess water slammed against the stacks of papers, warping them. The remaining wild air hit against the ink well, causing it to spiral the ground. Upon impact, the smashed shards flew like shrapnel while its dark contents spread across the wood of the floors. Mito’s eyes darted to the door and hoped that Toka had not heard.

     But Toka had. In her haste to investigate, she pulled aside the door frame with such force that the wooden frame rattled. Toka’s face was restrained and masked, a contrast to her earlier hasty movement.

     Mito stood up at attention, gathered herself into stiff and regal posture, every bit the noble woman she was and said she was. Even, now as Hokage’s wife, the memory of the ink of past treaties and the seals as the Uzumaki Princess from the village Uzushio of The Land of Whirlpools remained. She was supposed to be stable and not in need of surveillance. But now she was not only princess or wife but jinchuriki. Her movement was done too quickly and the chair she had been sitting on fell over. Its legs landed in the ink spill, sending flecks of black ink flying onto the bottom of her white dress.

     This ruined the composed image she had hoped to project to Toka, her strong posture and forced smile useless when she bent her head, looked down at the damage.  Mito bowed and trembled. The seal tags affixed to her plum-colored hair swung in a small arc, a weak clue of the tumult within her. In the confines of her psyche the Kyuubi raged in its cage, smashed its tails against the unyielding bars, held by Mito’s seals and her will, her body.

     The Kyuubi hissed, “She can’t help you, and the one who can help you isn’t here.”

     Mito swallowed the anger and pain that rises like bile in her mouth. Love, she reminded herself. The one. Hashirama Senju.  She thought of him now, but it is slightly harder to do when he is not in their bedroom but out in the forest somewhere, searching for a dead man. Madara Uchiha. Mito stopped her thoughts in their tracks, because the paths lead to darkness.

     She looked at the burnt surface of the desk with its waterlogged papers. She looked at the wooden floors, covered in ink, some specks of which were on her white dress. The desk and floor were both things that had been made by Hashirama’s mokuton. So had been the empty bed she refuses to sleep in because she can’t sleep because of the Kyuubi, because Hashirama was desperately searching for the one that they had wrestled the Kyuubi from. 

     Toka swept slowly over the stained floors and ruined desk, her gaze aided by the soft moonlight, taking in the damage with the eye not obscured by her bang. Toka tried to think of the best course of action that would not offend Mito. Although Toka had told Mito she was there to watch over her, Mito had wanted to dismiss her. Mito had said she was fine and there weren’t troubling complications with the Kyuubi. It was probably not the entire truth because now ink was sinking into the floorboards and candle wax was splattered over a blackened desk.

     And Mito was trying to stand tall even with her shaking body and haggard expression.  Only now the moon's light casts Mito's face in a ghostly light, drawing out the nuances of her barely concealed pain. Toka bit back a sound of outrage, at Mito trying to conceal hurt and in doing so tire her body further.

     Mito stumbled and tried to make it look like she had done so on purpose, kneeling to remove the ink and shards on the floor. Toka was not so easily fooled. She moved quickly and before Mito could protest she swept up the shards and ink with gloved hands and a thick cloth from her pack. All the while she kept her face neutral while Mito had stood up and moved to lie on the bed. She turned the energy she had been using to stand to trying to appear fine.

     When Toka finished her task, she carefully set aside the bundle into the pack she carried. She turned her attention to Mito, who smiled at Toka’s controlled expression and wished her own expression was as controlled. 

     Toka had seen Mito’s face lit by the moon before. The night Mito and Hashirama wed,  Toka had seen Mito dressed in wedding attire, ethereal in the white of her kimono, smiling with a light stronger than the moon’s . The Mito before her did not smile a true smile.

     Toka hoped she didn’t look too long or show too much emotion upon recalling the memories. She fixed her attention at the chair, tried to look as if she was assessing whether or not to pick it up when really she was looking at the spots of ink on the bottom of Mito’s dress. Toka stayed where she was, crossed her arms behind her back, and resisted the desire to hold Mito. Then Toka uncrossed her arms, she braced her arms against the wooden frame of the door.

     She thought of her birth, being born in a time of war and famine, when there was not enough food to go around. She should have died. But Hashirama had, at the age of four, pushed himself to a near coma, grew crop after crop until there was enough to eat, even for the littlest babe it was thought a waste to feed, a baby girl.

     Even if she was a baby then and could not have remembered, she was informed by others. She thought herself indebted to Hashirama. Growing up, she accompanied him often enough that Tobirama teased once, “When did we get a little sister?”. She did little things to attempt to repay Hashirama. She did his chores, took on his shifts, so he could have free time to sneak off to skip rocks in the river. But the debt built up still when her kind cousin grew fruit to share as a respite after exhausting training sessions on hot summer days. It grew as they grew up; when Hashirama prepared, and picked herbs to do anything from sooth injuries, to flavor dishes when famine ended and more food was available.

     Toka emerged from her memories and chided herself for being so sentimental. Mentally she blamed lack of sleep, worry over Mito’s condition and worry over Hashirama’s forays into the forest . She addressed Mito. “You should be asleep. ” The words come out more like an order, and Toka berates herself mentally for not thinking of anything else to say but the obvious. As if she is one to talk.

     She looked at the covers of the bed that lay neatly folded, one side appeared left untouched, while the other barely held a murmur of occupancy.

     Toka added, “Is it the Kyuubi?” not as question but a statement. Her already sharp eyebrows narrowed, accented by the sharp line of her dark lips. She looked at Mito with a serious frown; not directed at Mito but at the bijuu within her, as if Toka could capture its attention and made it be known how displeased she was about its treatment of Mito. 

     Mito could not help but make a small sound of surprise, because Toka had spoken of the Kyuubi, not avoiding the topic as most of the villagers had. A taboo subject, because some had seen the vastness of the destruction and told others in turn so the news had spread quickly.

     The avoidance, isolation and ignoring was as if she had “condemned” painted on her forehead instead of a diamond. Like she had been condemned the moment she chose to seal the Kyuubi inside her, the moment she decided to turn the fight in Hashirama’s favor, to save him. To save everyone.   

     But fear had spread like the roots of a tree drinking from a poisoned well, especially since Madara had planned to destroy the village with the Kyuubi. And now the Kyuubi lived within the confines of the village. It was confined within Mito, but Mito was not the creature. She would not destroy the village when she remembered so the harsh loss of her own. But the villagers didn’t think much to see the difference, avoided her with whispers of ‘jinchuriki,’ avoided her because by doing so avoided the Kyuubi.

     Mito knew fear, because she had feared Uzushio being destroyed until it finally was and she no longer had that to fear. She instead had to face many other things like finding a clean source of water, edible food, and shelter daily. Until Hashirama, who founded a village with his greatest enemy, created an area with houses for clans like creatures of the forest under one roof, one village. Hollowed himself for other’s homes.

     Somehow he made it work, for the most part. Idealistic, even if the clans had their disputes, rivalries, and histories. As if he could keep the denizens of the forest from conflicting with one another just because they shared a home. Deer, butterflies and boars may get along. But despite sharing a tree, snakes that lived at the base of a tree still ate the eggs from the hawks’ nest above.

     Still, he made a whole row of houses with mokuton as he easily and lovingly he made rows of trees and had made the houses safe and stable. And in doing so, he housed her heart which she had thought lost, sunk into the sea as Uzushio was.

     She could not practice sealing scrolls fast enough to be able to fight and save Uzushio, because the very sealing she was practicing was what made Uzushio so feared and targeted. She had wanted a sealing technique strong enough to hold an entire village so she could carry Uzushio away, carry her home around with her. But in the end she had made a seal strong enough to seal a tailed beast capable of destroying a village, and the container was not a scroll but herself.

     Mito had started as a stranger in Konoha, an outsider from Uzushio. Although then the feelings of being an outsider were painful they had eased as she got more into her role, of being a pin that held the alliance between the Senju and Uzumaki together. She fell more in love with Hashirama, and with Konoha by extension. A new home. But now it felt like she had taken all those steps forward only to be now pushed back a thousand. 

     Hashirama had made her feel welcome, when he had offered to grow plants found around Uzushio, and she had shared scrolls with him so he could grow the plants described within. Later, together they were sad to find that the plants he had grown withered because they were the kind of plants that survived with the wind and sea and salt, the environment of the Land of Whirlpool and not the Land of Fire’s thick forest with tall trees that blocked the sun and provided shade at the same time.

     Mito pulled herself out of her thoughts, when she focused again, Toka was still watching her, patient, not pushing for an answer, but waiting for the words to come out of Mito’s lips.

     “Yes, the Kyuubi,” and the word ‘Kyuubi’ is a heavy weight upon her tongue, that rolls off, heavy as the burden she carries, but it is also a confirmation of its existence, an acknowledgement of her state.

     “I am awake because the Kyuubi is awake and restless. I cannot rest while it is trying to break free. I thought to distract myself by trying to write but he persists…I cannot let a hawk go free among a nest of doves.”

     Toka walked to the woman that stood between Konoha and destruction, and kneeled by the bed, situating herself comfortably in Mito’s personal space.

     Mito blinked in surprise. She had grown used to the distance that grew from the moment she took on the role of jinchuriki. When she goes out, people keep many feet away as if there was an invisible force field around her, or it was thought that going within that space would result in instant incineration by Kyuubi chakra.

     “Are you not afraid I would lose control of the Kyuubi? This close you would-”

     “I have more faith in you than that, Uzumaki-san. Your seal work is stronger than that.”

     Mito smiled a small smile and accepted the praise because Toka’s expression was dead serious.

     “Why do you not call me Mito.”

     Toka’s expression softened, she smiled and then continued, “I had thought you wanted to remain Uzumaki even if you married into Senju. And I believe your station higher than mine, and I also believe your work stronger. It would ease my worry for your health if the Kyuubi were sealed further.”

     “Thank you, Toka, for your faith in me…Although my work is strong enough to repress the Kyuubi more completely, I kept in mind not to shut away the Kyuubi’s awareness of the world entirely. It would be too cruel and lonely a burden if it could not communicate.”

     Mito looked intently at the pillow on Hashirama’s side of the bed and said, “I want to communicate with, not trap the Kyuubi without a tie to the outside would. Do you ever feel it, Toka-san? A sort of loneliness that is not cured, even among a crowd, among friends?”

     Toka realized with a start, she knew what Mito meant. She felt it among the ranks, although they were all Senju, the male soldiers were still somewhat distant from her. They built their strong bonds, their friendships, and when Toka tried to approach them for the most part they accepted her but kept an intangible distance, like a pride of lions not quite believing a tiger was one of them. It left Toka feeling cut off although she still had bonds.  If anything it pushed her to practice, to perfect her genjutsus, and to spar often with Hashirama.

     But even when she was close to Hashirama, close and trusted, and stood by his side, more often than not, comrades-in-arms, if they had problems or needed support would go to Tobirama instead.

    She answered, “Yes.”

    Mito relaxed her posture, dropped her persona of the noble woman, and retreated to her bed. She lay down and wrapped herself in the covers as if extra layers will help hold the Kyuubi back. The Kyuubi raged again, against the cage within.  

    Mito opened her mouth to shout but shifted it into a yawn, “Why are you here, Toka?”

    Another question.

    “Duty,” Toka replied, as if it explained everything, and in a way it did.

    “Duty,” Mito repeated, to herself or the Kyuubi, Toka does not know.

     Duty, Mito thought. She was the daughter of the head of the Uzumaki clan, and she had a duty to the clan, the displaced people that needed allies, needed help and perhaps home, so, a vital alliance needed to be sealed by marriage, because after all it was easier to accept the Uzumakis into the village of it was not the sheltering of strangers but of family. A contract sealed by marriage adding strength to the tie of a shared ancient ancestor.

     Mito shifted in her cocoon of blankets, and asked again, “What are you doing here?”

     “Hashirama-sama tasked me with watching you and doing what I can for you, in his stead.” 

Mito doesn't answer immediately because another crash of hateful chakra swelled within her. 

"There is something you can do for me.” She said once she recovered. 

Toka stood at attention.

      “Cast a genjutsu upon me.”

     Toka’s complexion pales in confusion but that was all she betrayed. “That would trap you under my power.”

      “I am already trapped and caught, in this village. I am a cage that is caged, although I don’t think of Konoha as unbearable and I do not want to be a cage for the Kyuubi. I cannot leave Konoha as long as there is the danger of me being captured and used to wipe out its existence.”

      Another surge of chakra from within her caused Mito to close her eyes. When she opened them, the pain was more distant, buried.

      She felt warm and safe, the sun was shining on her and she was no longer in a bedroom. Sand slides against her legs when she moved them. She can hear the waves beat softly against the shore. Birds cry in the air. She cried out too, a sound of relief.

      She turned to see that Toka was beside her.

      “Is this acceptable, Mito-san?”

      “Yes, it is. Thank you.” Mito, in this genjutsu felt free to do what she pleased, although she knew Toka could modify and control what she experiences.

      She once more breathed in the scent of the sea that reminded her of her village of birth. She smiled upon remembering how Toka had protected her own home. How she had witnessed Toka use a genjutsu upon an entire enemy squadron and had laid a trail so carefully, gradually, a forest turning into a plain into a swamp, with little suggestions to destroy their sense of direction, it had ended with them deep in a swamp that they thought was their village. By the time they got out the Senju were no longer their enemy in a conflict and eventually they had made their way back to their actual village.

      In the genjutsu, Mito undid the buns of her hair and allowed the strands to fall, feeling the wind of the shore blow through her long hair. She was wearing a loose kimono on a shore by the sea, but Toka looked positively ridiculous in a dark suit, covered with metal plates. 

      Mito told Toka this.

      Toka sighed and raised her hand, undid her own top-knot with one hand. Her dark hair fell unceremoniously.

      They sat on the sand, in front of the sea, side by side, in comfortable silence. Mito looked intensely at the sea, as if seeking something, while Toka’s expression was similar, although she looked at Mito.  

      However, it does not take Mito long to know she was being watched, she turns to Toka who does not turn away but says, “The loneliness is gone.”

      “Yes, for now it is gone.”

      “Will this be enough?”

      “Yes.”

     Toka released the genjutsu and they are in a bedroom again. She stood and thought of saying something like “Good night” before leaving to return to her post outside.

     “Will you stand all night, or rest?”

     Toka stopped in her tracks.

     Mito got out of the cocoon of blankets she had, and generously pushed some toward the side of the bed Hashirama should be. Her eyes closed.

     Toka picked up the chair that had fallen earlier. She carefully removed her armor and placed it on the chair until she was only in her dark outfit. She undoes her top-knot, in reality this time, not genjustu. She reminded herself this is reality.  She walked to the bed, lay down, and filled the space Hashirama was supposed to have filled. Toka turned to face Mito but makes sure she was not in contact with Mito at all. She listened to Mito’s soft, peaceful breathing and realizes she was truly asleep. She does not know when she nodded off.

     When Toka woke up in the morning, she wonders if she had casted herself into a genjutsu because she wakes up to red-plum hair and a diamond mark forehead. But then she remembered.

     Mito was still asleep, probably still exhausted from her struggles with the Kyuubi. Toka does not want to wake her up; wanted to let her be in peace a little longer.

     She got up, put on her armor with efficient, practiced movements, and redid her top-knot.  When she was in the middle of re-tying her hair she heard a shuffle from the direction of the bed.

     Mito opened her eyes and says, “Will you do that for me again, if I ask?”

     “If you are in need.”

     Toka made her leave and opened the front door, but the strong light of the morning sun shining into the house was blocked by a tall figure.

     “Ah, Toka-chan. Morning.” Hashirama says from his position at the threshold of the doorway, scratching the back of his head, he smiles sheepishly. “I am sorry. I did not think I would be gone so long. I had thought to return sooner..” He gasped in shock as a thought occurred to him. “Did you stay all night?”   

     “Yes.”

     “I am sorry for the trouble.”

    “It was no trouble.”

     Hashirama stepped aside, and she walked past him, but stood by the doorway, watched as Hashirama walked into the house and met up with Mito who had walked out to meet him. 

     She watched as they embraced. She listened as Hashirama gave Mito an apology and a necklace. It said all the things he couldn’t say. Sorry for leaving you (again) and chasing after Madara (again).

     The necklace of green crystal was worth three mountains, was infused with Hashirama’s chakra, and could suppress the Kyuubi when it tried to manifest its chakra.

     Toka tried not to think much, except that the crystal suited Mito’s eyes. She left and returned to her duties.   

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
